WL's Mainstream Gay Book Reviews - 41. Halloween Month Special Reviews: Brothersong (Book 4 of Green Creek Series) by T.J. Klune

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53508243-brothersong

Well, good things have to end, but sometimes I just wish the ending met expectations. There were things in this book I truly enjoyed, but there were more things I just did not, especially the pacing and the details that T.J. Klune tried to cram into the book. Reduction is a hard feat to achieve as a writer, I know I fall into the same trap. However, sometimes, you shouldn’t try to fix things you did in the past with retcons in the present. Only progression can make a story read best without dragging readers backwards and reinterpreting consequential scenes. I’ve read several series to their conclusions, one thing I have learned is that finishing a long running series with a satisfying conclusion is hard for writers. Sometimes the worst mistake made is overthinking what has come before.

Length-wise, it is 519 pages long and 19 hours 33 minutes long. This is quite a bit of reading and I must advise folks that you will get lost in the weeds. Even for a reader like me, I had to reference back and forth across the books to understand what some of the flashback/dream sequences meant at the opening chapters of Carter’s journey.

Plot: We start off with Carter hunting for Gavin at the end of Book 3, Carter is able to find little notes across the country left by Gavin, telling him to stay away from him and his evil father. Gavin knows how dangerous Robert Livingstone is and does not want his mate to be harmed. Carter, being separated from his pack for so long, begins to lose his tether to his humanity and slowly dreams of his past. We encounter ghosts for the first time in the novel series as well, when Carter has nearly reached his limit and was nearing his breaking point, but the spirit helps guide him to Gavin. There are dangers in the search for his mate, hunters attack, but Carter is saved by Gavin. Carter learns the secret to Robert Livingstone’s dormancy for the last year, Gavin has been feeding him his lifeforce in exchange for the safety of those he loved. Eventually, Joe, Kelly, Gordo, and Ox find Carter and Gavin, rescuing them from Robert Livingstone’s clutches. However, the final battle draws near as Robert Livingstone despite being trapped along with the remnants of his allies from Caswell, Maine pack loyal to his new order are gathering their forces for a full-frontal assault on Green Creek, Oregon. The human townspeople of Green Creek join the Bennett pack, along with other werewolves in resistance against the coming onslaught. At the same time, Gavin slowly learns what it means to be human and he discovers his interests and personality, which strangely does attract Carter due to his effeminate qualities. The final battle ensues and many characters are injured, including a notable supporting character death, but the ending is a Happy Ever After with a note from the late Thomas Bennett to end the series about hopes for the future.

Review: I don’t hate the last book, nor do I dislike it as much as the first book, which was obviously far too stuck on fan-fic origins. However, there’s just things about the plot that just feels off to me. Things that just didn’t work. For one thing, the emotional guilt Carter showed over Joe’s kidnapping in book 4 came out of nowhere, I’m sorry T.J. Klune fans, but I feel like this would have made Carter’s character far more dynamic if it was introduced in book 1 rather than book 4 and also there was no sign of it in over 750K+ words I’ve read so far. That was a bad idea to introduce it in book 4, like adding Vincent Corleone into Godfather Part 3, why weren’t readers even shown hints of this in earlier books. That’s just the beginning of the book.

As for characters, Carter is all over the place literally and figuratively as a character. His one-man crusade to find his mate was a charming notion and I’d back T.J. Klune on it again if he were to write the concept. However, his dream/vision/memory quest story at the start of the novel was too disjointed to make a coherent storyline. There are too many psychological threads going on in his head. His chemistry with Gavin was also woefully underdeveloped. I see they like each other, but unlike Kelly and Robbie’s relationship in book 3, Mark and Gordo’s in book 2, or even Ox and Joe’s in book 1, they lacked the deep resonating affection that I’ve come to view as hallmarks of T.J. Klune’s werewolf mates. Carter does enjoy Gavin’s company, he does want physical contact with him, but he’s nowhere near the point of comfort with gay sex that a sexually fluid werewolf in this universe should be.

On the flip side, Gavin is developmentally and psychologically scarred. His speech pattern and his mental process are just off from someone ready to enter into a relationship. I understand what T.J. was trying to do with him, helping him discover his humanity again, learn about his sexuality, and making him effeminate, which again adds another draw to Carter’s attention. However, being effeminate alone does not mean seemingly heterosexual/bisexual males will be attracted to you. I enjoyed Gavin as a wolf yearning to be with his mate, Carter enjoying the possessiveness of Gavin in prior books, and ultimately, I think they should have been a better pair as two guys just finding each other’s company and support attractive rather than trying to add in features about their psychological background or thought process.

The ending of Robert Livingstone was done fine, but I also did not like how we learn he had a secret teenage witch protégé from Caswell, Maine in book 4. Again, it’s another last book addition issue I wish was not done, because it just added conflict and made things far more complicated. Where was this kid, when Robert Livingstone was weaponizing the other wolves or murdering humans/witches left and right? He’s a villain with a lot of bite, but no backstory to make him worth anything more than the chew-toy he ended up for Carter in the final battle.

My Review: 3.75 us of 5, I don’t hate this book and I can recommend it for fans of the series, but T.J. let me down a bit in what he did to his story by trying to add new elements and new characters that were unnecessary to make this last book good.

Overall Book Series Review= 16.75 out of 20 or 83.75%, it is a good series if you like werewolf fiction and I do highly recommend it. It’s unique among shifter genre as T.J. does not fall on standard tropes of M/M romance or Omegaverse, but I must note it did begin with tropes of fan-fic from Twilight like storytelling.

Book 1: 3.25

Book 2: 4.75

Book 3: 5.00

Book 4: 3.75